In Buster Olney's world, baseball's leagues would party like it's 1969.

In a follow-up to the first post of the day, Brett Favre is listed as inactive for tonight’s G-Men-Vikes tilt. Where were you on Sept. 27, 1992? That was a long time ago, so we can probably just assume you were in a state of blissful ignorance of the existence of said quarterback.

In other news, there are plenty of small pieces from today

NY Jets strength and conditioning coach Sal Alosiapologized for tripping Nolan Carroll of the Miami Dolphins yesterday. Whatever he was thinking in that moment he certainly regrets now. You know you have a problem if you’re the center of attention as a glorified gym teacher.

The Yankees, perhaps as a bluff, publicly stated that they won’t raise their offer as the Cliff Lee hostage crisis continues along. On a related note, Mike Lupica of the NY Daily News contends that the yanks’ way is still to pay, pay, pay. We’re used to seeing this type of approach from the Bombers. It seems that the only ones who don’t see a road ahead paved by (extremely heavy) dead-weight contracts is the Yankees themselves. Maybe they know something we don’t.

The average MLB salary is over $3 Million for the first time in history. The average American still makes under $30,000 per year. What’s a few zeroes among friends? Reminder: tickets are on sale now throughout the big leagues!

Carmelo Anthony isn’t giving the Nuggets a lot of options. He said he’ll only negotiate a new contract if he’s traded to the Knicks.

For all the talk about expanding the baseball playoffs, one format I do find to be acceptable is the suggested elimination of divisions. The plan outlined in this “insider” piece by Buster Olney suggests expanding the playoff field to ten teams, with the best five from each league making the playoffs.

The only problem with that is that one team from each league would have to have a bye, a concept completely foreign to the sport, and more of a disadvantage than an advantage most of the time. The idea makes sense on the surface: Eliminating the divisions means less head-to-head with the Sox and Yanks for Baltimore, Toronto and Tampa, and it’d be good for baseball in general, but not with expansion of the final playoff field.

Olney’s motivations are admirable, as it would mean better opportunity for the other three teams in the AL East, which constantly seem to be stranded on a desert island. If the playoffs did expand, it would make the most competitive sense to eliminate the divisions. The only problem is, for it to make sense the field would need to be expanded from eight to 12 in order for it to be even, meaning that just under half of the league would qualify.

Do we really want the 2006 Cardinals crashing the World Series party on a more regular basis?

MLB does have some problems with competitive imbalance, but that doesn’t mean that October baseball should rival the Stanley Cup Circus in stupidity.